Jail Is Where The Heart Is

With Tihar jail becoming the new VIP hangout in Delhi and many other jails in state capitals such as Mumbai, Bangalore too following suit, the government is suddenly seized of the matter to reform the jails - at least the VIP sections. It has formed a committee for the purpose and Tihar would be used as pilot project. After the first meeting, the chairman of the committee Mr Salakhein Singh had an informal chat with journalists, we present you the excerpts.

On the need of the committee:  There was a demand to reform prisons when some biscuitwalla died while at Tihar in 1995. Forgot his name - some Pillai. Was heading Britannia company back then. But it became a reality only now, in fact things got moving only after a spate of scams like CWG and 2G happened. After the recent Supreme Court verdict on 2G scam, I think some of the accused will be here for long and we expect it will 'ring in' far reaching changes.

Reforms planned: First of all we plan to have a super-specialty hospital on Tihar premises itself. The hospital would have specialists dealing with illnesses that VIPs fall prey to after adverse court verdicts are announced. They range from chest pains, stomach upsets to amnesia. With lots of VIPs in Tihar and other jails, the ambulances are stretched beyond their limits. Moreover the jails don't have enough security staff to ferry so many VIPs to hospitals and back. Many of those accused in CWG scam have shown eagerness to undertake the construction of these hospitals.

There was a dispute whether to accept the proposal of CWG scam accused guys to set up Parliament annexe at Tihar or set up a video conferencing facility as mooted by the 2G scam accused, but since  the latter proposal was routed through Nira Radia it scored as per the 'first come first served' criterion. MPs serving jail term can air their opinions while Parliament is in session and there will even be facility to beep out un-Parliamentary words. The votaries of this proposal have assured that the network will be set up at ‘zero presumptive loss’ and want accounting rights to be given to Kapil Sibal and public relations rights to Digvijay Singh.

Other proposals: We have come up with some out of the box proposals to raise the money to fund the above reforms. Outside the jail premises we have decided to put up Muppets, made up of material used to make stuffed toys, of current and former inmates. The visitors who wish to vent their spleen can pay a fee and then kick or slap these Muppets. Higher fees will be charged from those wishing to throw shoes. We are quite excited about the proposal and hope to get a good response. We even plan to ship some of these exhibits through various parts of the country by special trains and have whistle-stop exhibitions at various stations. People there can pay fees and enjoy the facility, they needn't come all the way to Tihar.

There is also a proposal to set up museum of prison related exhibits and we hope to draw a good response. The prominent exhibits that comes to my mind is the toothpicks used by Ajmal Kasab after eating biriyani, the blackberry seized from some of our prisoners, the plate that was issued to Anna Hazare which he didn't use, the tandoor used by Sunil Sharma to fry his wife Naina Sahani. The list is too long and we have set up a sub-committee to identify all these artifacts.

Motto of the committee: We wish to make conditions in jails more livable, in fact so congenial that our VIP prisoners would be tempted to overstay, as they do with their official residences in Lutyen's Delhi after losing power. They should be made to feel that jail is where the heart is.